To "that" teacher

Full disclaimer. My kids have had some AMAZING teachers. In fact, we have been blessed with people who have loved them and genuinley wanted to teach them. We have done our best to support teachers and help when we could. We love teachers and are so grateful they still want to teach little lives in this crazy educational system.

With this disclaimer over, I have to acknowledge how difficult this year has been.

To our first mean teacher,

Wow! Are you as glad as I am that this year is completed? Every interaction I have experienced with you, resulted in me being keenly aware that you do not like children. In fact, you appeared to be annoyed by their presence. I watched you roll your eyes at them as they walked in the room. I watched you hide around the corner and purposely not step into the classroom during the parent meeting regarding the state testing. I definitely noticed how my little girl talked about how loud you can yell.

Anyways, I know I'm more than happy this year is done. You did teach her a few things though. This year, we learned how to work with difficult people. We learned that some people are not happy. We learned their happiness is not dependent on our behavior. We learned that some people, can never be pleased by us because something inside of them is sad.

We learned that it is not okay to stop trying because someone else does not care. You remember when she didn't turn in homework? Well, she stopped turning it in because she realized you weren't really looking at it. She said you never even bothered to explain where to place it. Did she give it to you? Did she put in the box on your desk? Were you going to walk around and collect it? You did all those methods, which she found confusing. And, with the yelling, she was afraid to ask. Remember when we met about this? You rolled your eyes at me too. Fortunately, for us both, I have the ability to regulate my emotions and calmly asked you how she is supposed to turn it in to you. You acknowledged your lack of routine. It was the other, really good teacher in the room, who suggested you remedy that. I knew then, we were in for a long year. It was September.

We learned that even when other people don't care, we do our best anyway. We learned that when teachers change grades, we can demand to see papers. We learned that some teachers do not allow straight 'A's no matter how hard someone works. We learned to work hard anyway. Knowing my girl scored second highest in the entire class on the state pretest tells me she has a great grasp of content she needs to know. Seeing that you marked through and changed numerical grades on the papers we asked to review, made me believe, she was right all along. You didn't really grade papers.

We learned that when an adult shows you things you know you shouldn't read, like emails between our parents and teachers, we need to tell our parents. We learned passive aggressive at nine isn't pretty. We learned this girl has more of her mom in her than we knew. We learned it isn't appropriate to be direspectful to adults, even when we are right. We learned to stand up respectfully. We also learned that parent's are the best advocates we have. We learned that a lot can be solved through communication.

We learned it is more than okay to ask for clarification. We learned to request expectations so we know what we are striving for. We learned that teachers have to follow rules too. We learned to ask for help; from past teachers, from other students, from administration, from God, and from somewhere inside of us.

We learned that some situations, you just have to take one day at time. Some things we cannot solve, but we can learn from.

So, mean one, I can't say at the end of the year that you didn't teach her or us anything.

I wish you would be the last mean, unrealistic, person she will deal with in her life. I know that can't be. So, thank you, for teaching her to dig deep, work hard, do well anyway, and to remember her identity is not yours to define. Those are lessons we all need to know.

Too bad there isn't a column for that on her report card.

Have a great summer. Maybe look for another line of work? May I suggest you go write for Pearson? You won't have to see a kid again, yet you can hold them to totally unrealistic expectations. That seems like it would be a good fit for you.